If
you've got a taste for bloodsuckers, then look no further! Dark Horse
does vampires right and gives readers who crave creatures of the night a
crypt full of creepy comics!

Step into the world of Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9, as everyone's favorite Slayer adapts to her new life in San Francisco. Then check out Angel & Faith, where the vampire with a soul and the once-evil Slayer work to atone for past sins.

This preview issue also features Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden's Baltimore,
which follows a vampire hunter living in a world beset by a post–World
War I vampire infestation; samples from P. C. and Kristin Cast's story
of a vampyre boarding school in House of Night; and Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan's The Strain, in which Manhattan suffers from a vampiric plague!

• Issue features selections from Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9 #1,Angel & Faith #1, Baltimore: The Curse Bells #1, The Strain #1, and House of Night #1.
Plus, the entirety of a short story entitled "Magical Mystery Tour
Featuring the Beetles," a previously unreleased, digital-only retailer
exclusive from Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Mr. Morlock is a big fan of Scooty & JoJo. At first it was just the audacity of the Halloween show. But all of their work is daring and awesome and goofy and amazing and ridiculous. And they're damn fine people too. No one deserve insanely huge success more than they do. This show will make it happen.

Mr. Morlock dropped a litter of kittens the first time he saw "second best horror movie and the second best action movie of all time, set to the music of the second best rock band ever". Kittens, I tell you. Then he saw it again at the Metro last year and it was even better. It was enormous. A ripping, snorting, glam-rock woolly mammoth.

And now, just in time for Prometheus, it's back. Good lord, see this damn show. I wish WildClaw had the cannonballs to put ALIEN and ALIENS on the stage, and here these guys do it with music! I'm so in love.

"The Scooty& JoJo Show returns to Metro June 1st for the ultimate sci-fi rock spectacle! Alien meets Queen meets Battlestar Fantastica with a full choir and inter-species dance party. Proceeds go to the GoGo Legit Campaign. Doors at 9pm. Must be 18 +. Sci-Fi dress encouraged. Tickets: $20-$40"

Monday, May 14, 2012

I didn't
know what to do, where to begin, how to navigate... So, I called upon a
trusted convention slut who I knew would show me the ropes.

Being privileged enough to be a part of a horror theatre company,
we were able to score some VIP passes that allowed us early access. We
grabbed some lanyards & maps and set out. Now, being a virgin I
expected a little foreplay before getting heavy but I know now that that
was a silly expectation. As soon as you're in, you're in.

Boothes sprawled out before you in a vast grid with
all their goodies on display. T-shirts and posters and stickers, Oh My!
Not to mention the displays of practical & collectors weapons (i.e.
"stabby things", of which I'm a big fan...), buttons, masks, hats,
jewelry... Sensory overload like woah. However, I had my Con Vet, so we
walked the grid and took it all in bit by bit. What was fantastic for
me, was being able to actually speak with the artists behind the artwork
I admired as I meandered about. Some were local Chicago folk, others
had traveled as far as Seattle or Miami but all were showing off what
they do best and they wanted to talk about it. They wanted to share what
they do and so I picked up postcards & business cards like a drunk
Trixie picks up STD's at the John Barleycorn in Lakeview.

By the time more of the Wildclaw Clan arrived, we
were about halfway through and the public had been unfurled in the room.
Beautiful, organized Chaos. It was then that Wildclaw's fearless
leader, Aly Amidei, took the stage with Sparky Bobby Kind of Evil
Squirrel comics, Dave Dorman, Film makers John Pata & Adam Bartlett,
Brian Kirst & Rafael Nieves to talk about horror, community
building & the web we can create when we cross-over mediums. Ideas
were shared and nerd love was made in the form of idea sharing. So
hot...

I had to duck out early due to a voodoo curse put
upon me by unknown supernatural forces, but before I left I stopped by
Menton Matthews' booth and picked up a nude of Death. A haunting,
inspired print that I find myself staring at for extended periods of
time. Also, I couldn't leave without another print that I found. Sweet,
sad, stark yet utterly feminine work by Chicago's own Tanya Zolotareva.
Do yourself and favor and look into both of these artists. Gorgeous and
terrifying works that you need in your life.

So, I left C2E2 gently throttled and ready for round 2. April 26-28, 2013, are you here yet?

“A naked toddler and a skeleton struggle fiercely over the body of the mother’s child…”
That quote is the first line in an article by Lori Waxman in today’s Chicago Tribune. It got my attention! After all, baseball, apple pie and dead mothers bodies. It’s so American. Well, just kidding. Not everybody likes baseball.

OK, OK. Here’s what I want to share. The quote is from an article about a new exhibit at the Cultural Center in Chicago. “Morbid Curiosity: The Richard Harris Collection’ is the title of the exhibit. “Four centuries of trophy heads…crochet corpses…represent what must be one of the broadest surveys of cultural attitudes towards death ever gathered in a single gathering place.”
With WILDCLAW’S upcoming fall show, The Life of Death (adapted by Charley Sherman from a Clive Barker short story) this exhibit is of particular interest to us. If we’re going to show you death we need to lock ourselves up in a crypt with it. Breathe it’s air, get intimate with the impending fate that awaits us all. What a great study guide for us all prior to seeing The Life of Death. Better than actually dying. Then you’d miss the show.
Below is a link to the article and all the particulars of the exhibit.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Aaaaaaah. Drive-Ins. How I miss them. Watching films in the sanctity of my own mobile lair. The freedom to talk, smoke, and be voyeur to the conception of unwanted teenage pregnancies in the cars around me. Good old American fun!
The hosts of WBEZ's Filmspotting have put together a drive-in double feature. They're calling it: ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE. Dawn of the Dead and Shaun of the Dead are the terrific features. Check out the link below for times and details. I wonder how many zombies you can sneak into the show in the trunk of your car?

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Check out this story in the New York Times about a new Dolby soundsystem called Atmos that will enhance the auditory experiences of movie-goers, commenting particularly on the potential for truly immersive horror films.

One quote that caught the attention of yours truly:“You can imagine watching a scary movie, and it’s a scene when someone is hiding in a basement and there are footsteps on the floorboards above...The Atmos system will actually play that audio from above people in the theater.”

You don't say? As anyone who saw WildClaw's 2009 production of THE REVENANTS will recall, Mikhail Fiksel beat these guys to punch by exquisitely designing and pulling off that exact described sound effect in Angel Island Theater! Zombies right upstairs, people (and it scared the shit out of you).

Way ahead of his time, that guy.

In any case, I'm excited to experience Atmos firsthand. Sounds like a great innovation. What horror film would you want to re-experience with Atmos? For me, it'd be Alien.